Paul Bass Photo
Natreece Mayes with shot-up car; shattered back window (below).
Hours after a daylight shoot-out in Beaver Hills, cops across town arrested a gun-toter they believe fired some of the bullets.
The dozens of flying bullets shattered not only car windows, but neighbors’ feeling of safety.
The shoot-out took place right before 3 p.m. Tuesday on Carmel Street.
Three people called 911 to report hearing gunshots; one reported hearing around 30 shots.
Officers arrived on the scene to find 19 spent shell casings and a bullet on the street. They found six more spent casings from 559 Winthrop Ave. to Goffe Street.
They also obtained surveillance video showing “a white hatchback speeding behind a four door silver vehicle” at the time the shots were fired, according to a police report. “The white hatchback had a male subject hanging outside of it shooting at the silver vehicle.”
No one was reported showing up at the hospital with gunshot injuries.
Natreece Mayes was on the computer inside her home on the block when she heard the shots ring. She didn’t think much of it — she has been hearing gunfire all the time these days.
Then a neighbor knocked on the door “and said my car got shot up.” She went outside later to find bullet holes on all sides of 2015 Honda Accord, including a shattered back window.
Officer Brandon Way.
Two members of the police department’s shootings task force, Josh Castellano and Brandon Way, got a lead on a possible participant in the shooting: A 25-year-old man who recently left prison after serving less than two years for shooting a 15-year-old in the Popeye’s parking lot on Whalley Avenue in 2019. The suspect is on probation.
Castellano and Way went looking for the man.
Around 5:40 p.m., they saw the man driving a grey Nissan sedan near Stevens Street.
Here’s what happened next, according to Assistant Police Chief Karl Jacobson:
The officers turned on the lights to their cruiser to pull over the driver. Instead of stopping, the driver pulled away.
The officers started following him. Then a supervisor called off the chase.
Soon after that, neighbors called in a car crash at Washington Avenue and West Street. Castellano and Way headed over, as did other cops.
Neighbors there told the cops they saw two men flee from the cars after the crash. The neighbors pointed toward the backyards where the men fled.
The cops ran in the direction, and caught up with the two men. One was the 25-year-old suspect they’d been pursuing.
Patting the man down, they found a “black precision-brand firearms laser attachment” in his front coat pocket, as well as a belt used to secure a weapon.
A police canine was set on the trail between the crash and where the men were found. The canine led officers to a gun.
The cops made contact with the man’s probation officer, Eileen Marrano. Because the man is on a GPS tracker, she was able to establish that he had just been running at the spot where the dog found the gun. In addition, the gun matched the laser found in the man’s pocket.
Police also found 19 bags of crack packaged for sale on the suspect.
For now the man has been charged with several motor-vehicle and weapons offenses, as well as interfering with police. Jacobson said the man is also a suspect in the shoot-out earlier that day as well as other recent incidents involving gunfire. He is being held on $500,000 bond.
Mayes: “More needs to be done.”
Some of the bullet holes from the shoot-out.
Back on Carmel Street, retired police Sgt. Shafiq Abdussabur canvassed neighbors on Wednesday. Abdussabur lives nearby on the neighborhood; his son and daughter-in-law and grandchildren live a block from the gunfire.
Everyone’s rattled, he said. He spoke of one woman who lives on the block with eight children, one of whom was taking out the trash when the bullets began flying.
“You’ve got kids out of school. You’ve got people everywhere. This is just not a good situation,” Abdussabur said. “People want to see a greater police presence. They are concerned: Who do they turn to for help? Who do they turn for advice? There has to be better accountability and resources keeping people safe.”
“This is a very bad start to 2021,” he noted.
Certainly it was for Natreece Mayes. She kept her Honda Accord parked on the street Wednesday, fearful that if she drove it — especially on the highway to her job as a mental health counselor — the shattered windows would collapse inside the vehicle.
A phone call to her insurance company left her steamed: She faces paying a $500 deductible plus a $50 service charge if she wants to resume driving her car.
Mayes has lived on Carmel Street for 14 years. The gun violence “was bad” when she moved in, she said. It got better. “Now it’s getting worse again.
“I feel good about the arrest” of the suspect, Mayes said. “Now more needs to be done.”